Considering European expansion? Try looking at beer-drinking countries
She was speaking at an APSCo fringe event at Global Recruiter’s Recruitment Live exhibition this week where she said countries such as France had “nightmare” legislation.
“If you’re looking to expand in Europe, pretty much always go to a beer-drinking country and leave the wine-drinking countries behind … though France is a big market, it is pretty much at the bottom end and from a legislation point of view, let me tell you, nobody goes to France if they can help it.
“Food might be good, the wine’s good but as a recruitment market, it’s a bloody nightmare from a legislation point of view, so it generally is not anyone’s first or 28th choice.”
Recent APSCo research in conjunction with Deloitte found recruiters were looking at opening new branches, but not in the UK.
She also said UK recruiters were spending so little on upgrading technology infrastructure that it was reaching a “dire” situation.
“The UK recruitment market is spending 1.45% of our turnover on updating our technology infrastructure. That’s rubbish. It is so bad in comparison to other markets that we are in a danger zone.
“Not only are our clients spending more money, and they’re spending it in our arena and if we can’t communicate with them, we’re in trouble, but we’re getting left behind by the in-house recruitment teams so if we’re not careful, they’re going to have better access to candidates.
“Technology growth is moving faster every year and we need to be aware of it.”
• To find out about the firms that supply recruitment technology and how recruiters can improve software integration in their businesses, see Recruiter’s Guide to Recruitment Software with December’s issue.
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